A heterocyclic compound containing nitrogen exhibits high physiological activity and pharmacological activity and is very important in biological activity studies and pharmaceutical drug use. In particular, imidazopyridine having pyridine and imidazole residues or moieties constituting a specific skeleton exhibits antibacterial properties and is able to act as an antilipase, a kinase inhibitor and an H1-receptor antagonist. In addition, research of the imidazopyridine is actively underway as a core structure of numerous natural products.
In other words, the imidazopyridine may act as a major building block of Zolpidem which is an insomnia medicine, Alpidem which is an anxiety reliever, Zolimidine which is an anti-ulcer agent, Saripidem which is a sedative, Microprofen which is an analgesic, etc., and a number of researches have been reported on function thereof.

Thus, methods for synthesizing an N-heterobicyclic compound such as imidazopyridine from starting materials that are readily available in many groups have been reported: a) C. Huo, J. Tang, H. Xie, Y. Wang, J. Dong, Org. Lett. 2016, 18, 1016. b) J. Zeng, Y. J. Tan, M. L. Leow, X.-W. Liu, Org. Lett. 2012, 14, 4386. c) H. Huang, X. Ji, X. Tang, M. Zhang, S. Li, H. Jiang, Org. Lett. 2013, 15, 6254. d) H. Zhu, N. Shao, T. Chen, H. Zou, Chem. Commun. 2013, 49, 7738. e) Q. Cai, M.-C. Liu, B.-M. Mao, X. Xie, F.-C. Jia, Y.-P. Zhu, A.-X. Wu, Chin. Chem. Lett. 2015, 26, 881. f) H. Zhan, L. Zhao, J. Liao, N. Li, Q. Chen, S. Qiu, H. Cao, Adv. Synth. Catal. 2015, 357, 46. The previously reported synthesis method of imidazopyridine includes oxidation of 2-aminopyridine with β-keto ester or 1,3-dione via carbon tetrabromide as an intermediate, carbon-nitrogen (C—N) bond formation reaction, an intermolecular double-amination reaction of 2-aminopyridine and an alkyne under a copper (II) or iron (III) catalyst, a dehydrocyclization reaction of pyridine and oxime ester under copper (I) catalyst, a reaction of 2-aminopyridine with propionaldehyde through an intramolecular cyclization reaction under gold (I) catalyst, a reaction of an activated ketone with 2-aminopyridine, an aromatic cyclization reaction of pyridinium salts and MBHA (Morita-Baylis-Hillman adduct), etc.
However, the previously reported synthesis methods described above have problems such as limitation of introduction of a substituent, difficulty of reaction conditions, and a multi-step reaction step, etc., and thus research into a method of synthesizing an imidazopyridine derivative more efficiently by simpler processes under milder conditions is required.
The disclosure of this section is to provide background of the invention. Applicant notes that this section may contain information available before this application. However, by providing this section, Applicant does not admit that any information contained in this section constitutes prior art.